Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Finnish underground icon Sasu Ripatti returns under his most frequently used pseudonym, Vladislav Delay, for another bout of Dancefloor Classics. The series has already established a loyal following, and the fourth episode is enough to explain why, even if you've not encountered any of the preceding instalments. Music for imagined dancefloors is how the official release information puts it, it quickly becomes clear just how vivid that imagination is. Throwing down a string of footwork inspired cuts, the four tracks here are frantically upbeat and packed with filthy, jacking potential. But they're also deep, at times ghostly - or at least a little eerie - and ground in a desire not just to make people move, but also push sounds forward into new territories. Never an easy line to tread, the overall results hit as hard as the beats themselves.

Review: The always truly Indica Dub crew have got another standout 10" for you here. It's a collection of artists serving up the originals while the label's own in-house production outfit offer up their own dubs. Joseph Lalibela's 'Jah Kingdom Come' kicks off with chest-beating chords over clean digi-dub synthesis with big horns and vocals up top. The dub is more heavy and has a drilling bassline then Vanya O's 'Open The Gates' offers some majestic and hypnotic organ leads in textbook dancehall style. Tons of echo and reverb make the bottom end go on forever.

Review: Velour's much loved album on Wolf Music gets the full remix treatment here. Four of the cuts get reworked by label associates old and new and it is mainstay Hulk Hodn who goes first. His take on 'Tom's Garage' is a noodling chords and late night seduction. South London's Footshooter then brings some big broken beat work and swirling synths to a floor facing jam, and Frits Wentink follows up his big recent Dekmantel release with a high energy stomper that bubbles with dreamy vocal charm. Last of all is super cool and jazz heavy 20/100 remix of 'Luminate' that is space age, Detroit tinged, sunset house.

Review: What happens if you take a big vocal sample and drop it over a rinsing, old school jungle break beat? The first tune here, 'Opus III', that's what. It's a high energy affair that might well raise some eye brows given the vocal, but you can't help but admire it's all out joyousness and air of celebration. Flip it over and you'll find something just as divisive - another clattering jungle tune filled with kinetic kicks and flurries of snare, and once more a well-known vocal from Whamdo Project's 'Kings Of The Castle.'

Review: Emotional Rescue looks to the newly rebuilt but still very much culturally separate East and West Germany of the 1980s with this new EP. It's dub reggae through a post-punk and alternative lens by Hanover artists Felix Holter aka Dubvisionist. All these cuts have a very live, improvised feel because father way he worked from rhythms first and jammed endlessly before adding the vocals. They are taken from their 1987 release 10 Tracks Of Reggae & Dub Music which was inspired by the great Adrian Sherwood label On-U Sound label, and you can hear that clearly.

Review: Vladislav Delay can manipulate sound like few others. Where he gets his ideas from is anyone's guess but we're presented with a laid more of them here in the first of five EPs in a series. This one finds the man born Sasu Ripatti deconstructing his soundscapes into whirring machines, metallic textures and chopped dup dubs. It is sound art as much as club music but will still work on the more adventurous dance floors out there. 'Three-Room Problem' in particular is an eerie and unsettling piece but one that leaves you wanting more.

Review: Sasu Ripatti continues to plunge into techno abstraction through his Hide Behind The Silence series. It's but one outlet for the seemingly constant stream of innovative sound emerging from the Finnish pioneer's studio, and on this fourth 10" he's offering up more compelling studies in noise, texture, rhythm and space. 'Death Of A Bassdrum' seems to take aim at techno by burying a 4/4 kick under a twitchy, uncomfortable bed of scuffs and scrapes, while 'Post-Mortem' diverts into space-building sonics where found sounds and artful reverb create a vibrant, three-dimensional space to explore with your mind's eye.

Review: With roots in electro, hip-hop, house and techno, you can never quite be sure what Orlando Voorn will serve up next. On this top-notch ten-inch single - his first for NOUN - he's in full on techno mode, puffing out his chest and striding confidently towards peak-time dancefloors. The legendary Dutch producer first offers up 'Infinite Voyage', a slamming, warehouse-ready workout that wraps buzzing, mutant electronic lead lines and star-fall around stomping beats and booming bass. On 'Straight UP' he opts for darker, bolder, stabbing bass, alien-sounding bleeps, jazzy synth stabs, heady aural textures and another tough-as-teak drum track.

Review: 'Blues & Rhythm, Exotica & Tittyshakers' - if ever there was ever an album sub-title we could buy into, it's probably that. The fifth instalment of the celebrated Gibble Gobble blues compilation series lands and brings with it some of the farthest reaching tracks from the heyday of a sound which, let's face it, seems incapable of ageing, even if it often sounds like the era it was produced in.


Bringing together a stack of iconic names onto one expansive album, everyone will recognise artists like Earl Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, and Bob Callaway, while only the die-hard will be drawn to this collection by the inclusion of The Voodoos and Touissaint McCall, talent that goes someway towards explaining why we're recommending this one 'til we're blue in the face. A record that will introduce new generations to forgotten greats.

Review: In 1976, seven Cabo Verdean musicians going by the name Voz Di Sanicolau gathered in a small recording studio in Rotterdam where they laid down an album of fearsome coladeira songs inspired by the music of their home island of Sao Nicolau.

The album took only a few days to record, which may explain the unexpected urgency that fires each track. Treble-soaked electric guitar lines snake back and forth through percussion-and-cavaquinho driven rhythms rooted in the sound of the islands established by the previous generation of Cabo Verdean emigres; subtle keyboards wash through the background, and the vocals, traded between Joana Do Rosario and To-Ze, alternately push the music forward and soar above it. The resulting album is both deeply felt and fiercely executed, and in its grooves one hears the sound of some of the finest Cabo Verdean musicians of their era locked in complete unity of purpose.

It should have been the beginning of something extraordinary; but the pressures of making ends meet forced the musicians back to their day jobs, and Voz Di Sanicolau vanished as quickly as they had appeared, leaving their lone album, Fundo de Mare Palinha, as sole proof of their existence. Forty-four years later the album sounds as fresh as it did the day it was recorded. It is unknown if dutch sound engineer Frans Rolland, who oversaw the recordings, knew he was helping to make history: during these sessions, Joana Do Rosario, whose majestic vocals were crucial to the sound of Voz Di Sanicolau, became the first Cabo Verdean woman ever to appear on a long playing record.